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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

PhotobucketPerhaps the most common refrain in the clean energy industry is this: Why isn’t the US taking a leading role? Why are countries all over the world leap-frogging us Americans in this critical arena?

Of course our own Bill Paul talks about this constantly – but so do many others. Green Chip Stocks’ Nick Hodge notes:

Perhaps the best example is Papua New Guinea (PNG), where ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) is leading a $15 billion project to bring the county’s 22.5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to market. But PNG doesn’t want the gas… They want the revenue from the gas to build out clean infrastructure; harnessing their hydro, geothermal, and biomass resources as they sell the gas to the U.S. and the rest of the world. The message is clear: You guys go ahead and waste time with coal and oil. Pay us for it while we beat you to a clean energy future.

Perhaps there is more complexity here than I can see from where I sit. But I don’t think I’m going too far out on a limb when I suggest that the answer to this issue lies in the disgusting bickering and backbiting that lies at the core of the way in which our leaders get things done in Washington. If one side of the aisle wants it, the other side is forced to oppose it.  That’s just sickening.

And until we find a way to reform the entire process by which political campaigns are financed, prohibiting corporations from making massive contributions that effective purchase the will of our leaders, there is, in my estimation, no possibility of improvement.  Yet, as I noted here, the Supreme Court doesn’t seem to see the issue the way I do.  I hope folks will comment on this. 

In any case, as the late Robert Byrd said, decrying the partisanship that polarized what had earlier been a friendlier and more honest Senate, “The current system is rotten. It’s putrid. It stinks.”

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wtxpBvM-v0&w=445&h=364]

Here’s another snippet of my talk with Pat Mahan from FunRide. Here, he talks about his organization, which offers car sharing and alternative fueled vehicles.

I ran across FunRide a couple of years ago in meetings I had with electric vehicle enthusiasts in San Luis Obispo, CA.  I was concerned that the density of cars and people was not sufficiently high in that region to support this concept, but, in hindsight, I’m not sure that’s true.  One thing is for certain: the demographics of that area can’t get any better for progressive thinking and behavior.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYJzpN22pzg&w=445&h=364]

Here’s Funride’s Pat Mahan speaking with me about car sharing and alternative fuel vehicles on a recent episode of the 2GreenEnergy Report.

Car sharing is an important phenomenon, insofar as it reduces the net number of cars that are on our roads.  But interestingly, it signals (to me, at least) that perhaps I’m right in my theory about the paradign shift in driving habits.  

Here are people who are willing to give up ownership of their cars and see auto transportation as purely utilitarian.  I wonder how many people like that there are.  Let me tell you, if you’ve ever lived in Washington DC (I was there for four years) you have one realization real quick:  this is no place to own, park, drive, and insure a car of your own.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2TASxLtGU4&w=445&h=364]

Here’s a video on my new report, – The Tough Realities of Renewable Energy Businesses — Why Investors and Entrepreneurs are Struggling to Profit in Clean Energy.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

Tesla, the electric sports-car manufacturer, had a very successful IPO yesterday and today the stock continues to rise. Personally, I wouldn’t go near it. Battery technology still has a long way to go. When it does get there –probably in 3-4 years time — people will want “quick charge” capability, something their local electric utilitiy may not be able to provide. Again, just my opinion, but better to avoid a hyped-up company like Tesla and buy into the companies that must and rebuild the world’s high-voltage grid infrastructure, firms like Siemens, ABB and MYR Group.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

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Michael Scholey, CEO of e-bike start-up EMCycle, visited me on the 2GreenEnergy report for a show we taped yesterday, to be aired shortly. As you’ll see in the show, EMCycle boasts a cool, futuristic design for eco-sensitive drivers of short distances: commuters, shoppers, students, etc.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Politics

A friend from the UK asked for my take on a new Swiss movie on Jimmy Carter’s efforts to reduce the United States’ dependence on oil at the end of the 1970s. He points out, “I am sure it will not be well known in the States. Perhaps it should be.”

The movie in question, “The Road Not Taken,” is a documentary centering around President Jimmy Carter’s having a series of solar panels installed on the roof of the White House. At the time, he told the crowd gathered to mark the installation of the new units:

“A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people – harnessing the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.”

A few years later, President Ronald Reagan famously had the solar panels removed.

I wrote back:

In my mind, there is no doubt that the conversation, mute as it is in the US, has already added luster to Carter’s star and, I suppose, some tarnish to Reagan’s. But I’m more interested to know what this means in terms of the future. We’re still subsidizing fossil fuels. There are still 7000 lobbyists cruising around the Beltway influencing lawmakers to ensure that that oil, coal, and gas remain at the core of our energy future until the last drop of crude is sucked out of the Earth, we’ve ripped the top off the last mountain, and fracked the planet’s crust to smithereens.

Having said that, there are hundreds of lively discussions in the blogosphere every day about the R&D for clean energy. Bill Gates’ 2010 TED talk is getting some very good distribution. Perhaps this stark dichotomy between these two US presidents and the concept of the “road not taken” will be viewed as an iconic piece of US history — and perhaps it can be spun into the idea that “it’s not too late to get back on the right road.”

We can hope.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Renewables - Business

I had a chance conversation with Nick Roberts, VP Sales of GlobalNES recently – a company in renewables that boasts an interesting angle.

GlobalNES offers to arrange financing for, engineer, and install a range of commercial-sized clean energy systems – depending on the customer’s location and thus its access to resources, often including solar, wind power, geothermal, grey water reclamation, energy efficiencies, LED lighting, hydro technologies and fuel cell applications.
The typical project is in the hundreds of kilowatts – perhaps a shopping center, an industrial park, or some facet of a municipality.

I find two things interesting about the company:

They perform a comprehensive (“360-degree”) set of work actions virtually – that historically have required a traditional workplace environment. Practitioners sign up to be a part of Global NES in far-flung geographies, and then tap into veins of expertise and product/service delivery capability that are plugged in as required:

Assess Energy Performance and Needs
Analyze and Design
Customer Proposal
Project Implementation
Sustainability

This strikes me as quite creative.

The other interesting facet is that the company aspires to build a brand so strong that customers – and new people in the field – seek them out, and form an ever-increasing network of delivery.

Keep up the good work, guys.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

PhotobucketTuesday afternoon I’m headed to the television studio – Channel 6 — in beautiful Ventura, CA for my monthly taping of a couple of shows of the 2GreenEnergy report. My first guest is the CEO of Emcycle – an e-bike company that shows terrific promise. As I’ll explain to viewers, Emcycle is one of about 10 business plans that I’ve chosen to represent to investors, out of many hundreds I’ve reviewed in the past year or so.

There are a few features that attract me to the company and cause me to believe that they will ultimately succeed. First, they boast a unique and (I believe) a compelling product design. Of course, no one can predict market acceptance for a futuristic design. It’s easy to speculate in hindsight why the Ford Edsel of the 1950s failed and the Mustang a decade later was a smashing success. But try to do that looking into future – now more fraught with economic and sociologic uncertainty than perhaps ever before. Having said this, I hope readers will tune into the show or check out the videos online; I think you’ll see instantly why I’m so impressed with the overall concept.

The second reason I find even more compelling. These people are in a class by themselves in terms of what I would call “aggressive business posture.” Where some start-ups may be tenacious in terms of raising money, Emcycle has taken their product concept to the market – in advance of having a product for sale. The company’s principals have traveled the world, signing up an impressive network of of distributors who anxiously await the product, each champing at the bit to sell the product the moment it becomes available.

As I like to ask my start-up mode clients, “Are you sure you need to sell a few million dollars of equity? Wouldn’t you rather go out and get a few million dollars in purchase orders? It’s not as hard as it looks.”

Again, I hope you’ll tune in; I think you’ll be impressed with these people and the direction in which they’re headed.

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by Craig ShieldsPosted on Posted in Electric Vehicles

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyspsmrgwYI&w=445&h=364]

Sam Smith discusses Bermuda’s migration to electric vehicles with me on a recent episode of the 2GreenEnergy Report.

Full disclosure: I’m part of the effort to bring EVs to Bermuda.

Sometimes I challenge myself with tough projects, but sometimes I snap up the easy ones — like this. Hmmm. How to sell EVs in a place that has expensive gasoline, short driving distances, wealthy citizens, huge government incentives, and eco-sensitive tourists?

I’m not sure I need Madison Avenue for this one.

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